Comments and Sharing

I am not sure if I understand the BLS data. As I read the excerpt (I did not see any further explanation in the report) someone who is a salaried employee and get 4 weeks a year of paid vacation is not a year-round worker. If this is the case, it seems not to coincide with the general usage of the term.

I understand excluding teachers who get a 3-month block of time off each year, but excluding someone with more than two-weeks of vacation seems odd.

Woo I got it right! What do I win? It's important to note that this discrepancy arises from different survey methodology. The "full-year" question is a Census/ACS question and the "unemployment" question is a CPS question.

J: You are correct about the vacation-FT work interaction. That's why economists looking at Census data typically define their own "full-time, full-year" category. For instance, I will usually define them as respondents who worked 35+ weeks in the past 12 months with usually 35+ hours worked a week. Another definition I've used is 35+ weeks worked a year with 1400+ hours worked a year.

Blogging software: Powered by Movable Type 4.2.1.
Pictures courtesy of the authors.
All opinions expressed on EconLog reflect those of the author or individual commenters, and do
not necessarily represent the views or positions of the Library of
Economics and Liberty (Econlib) website or its owner, Liberty Fund,
Inc.

The cuneiform inscription in the Liberty Fund logo is the
earliest-known written appearance of the word
"freedom" (amagi), or "liberty." It
is taken from a clay document written about 2300 B.C. in the Sumerian city-state of Lagash.